Mark Aronson @ NYCSLS Fall Conference

Once again, New York City's School Library System's (NYCSLS) Office of Library Services put together a fantastic day of learning at Brooklyn Tech.  Marc Aronson, the prolific author of many original nonfiction books for young people, kicked off the 2011 NYCSLS Conference with a spectacular keynote called "The Magic Key and the Great Quest: The Many Journeys Nonfiction Books Offer Readers."  Aronson disputes the notion that fiction is for pleasure and nonfiction for information.  He even called into question the very name "nonfiction," as if it defines itself by what it is not (fiction).  In light of the demands of the new Common Core Standards, which emphasize reading informational text, Aronson asked "how can we convey the pleasures of nonfiction reading?" With nonfiction books, readers find pleasure beyond story.  A reader of nonfiction is not reading about or living through someone, s/he is someone. Librarians, he concluded, are the wizards, giving young people the key to a journey, albeit one that does not necessarily take them out of themselves.

Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert (forthcoming, August 2012) by Marc Aronson